Help to improve page loading time

wonder_lander · 6 Dec 2009 at 18:58

I am using a service called "Easy Content Units" - http://www.easycontentunits.com/ which allows me to pull products from various merchant network feeds.

The problem I am having is the time it can take for the service to return the information is causing visitors to leave the site. Here is an example of a unit loading http://www.fishkettle.co.uk/shop-for-a-fish-kettle

This page has 20 products on it (4 rows of 5 items) so isn't particularly large.

A fellow user proposed the following solution http://www.pauldixonwebdesign.co.uk/blog/2009/09/05/ecu-loading-idea/

Does this look like the only solution? Does anyone have an alternative service I should look into?

One of the main issues is the page just stops loading until the ECU has fully loaded

suarve · 6 Dec 2009 at 21:49

Slightly off topic, but I'd definately have some sort of small loading icon gif, with some text below it saying something like, 'products loading, please be patient......'. At the minute, as you say, people are leaving as there's no indication that anything is happening.

Personally, there was a wait of a good 10 seconds for me - and I'm on 8meg ADSL - quite a long time for 20 products to load

Russinating · 6 Dec 2009 at 21:54

Don't know if it helps but it loaded within 2 seconds for me! O2 6mb here.

wonder_lander · 6 Dec 2009 at 22:25

Cheers guys will have a play with the other solution (http://www.pauldixonwebdesign.co.uk/...-loading-idea/ ) as 10 seconds is way too long!

wonder_lander · 7 Dec 2009 at 20:26

OK have had a go at implementing this. http://www.fishkettle.co.uk/test

Can anyone say:

a) Is that better?
b) I can't work out why the ECU and Finding products don't align like they do on the other guys explanation page
c) How do I remove that border that's around the ECU (I guess it's in the stylesheet somewhere!)

Thanks for the feedback

GravyMonster · 8 Dec 2009 at 09:23

The page took a good 20 seconds before I even saw any content, and another 10 on top of that before all the images loaded in.

I'm on a BT leased line 2Mb up/down.

wonder_lander · 8 Dec 2009 at 09:29

Spunkey said:
The page took a good 20 seconds before I even saw any content, and another 10 on top of that before all the images loaded in.

I'm on a BT leased line 2Mb up/down.

Was that the original page or the new test one?

GravyMonster · 8 Dec 2009 at 09:54

Your new one. The old one wouldn't load even waiting for about a minute.

*edit*
Although saying that I've just tried it again and it loaded the page after about 2 seconds with your loading gif, and the products followed another 2 seconds later.

It could possibly be a caching issue?

wonder_lander · 8 Dec 2009 at 10:26

Hmm seems OK for me but would like to hear others feedback